Web Analytics 2.0 Book: In Stores Now!!

I am absolutely thrilled that my book Web Analytics 2.0 has been released and is in retail stores now, online and offline! Hurray!!

Even with a broken right hand I can't help but write this post!

The waterfall of positive feeling stems from the fact that this book was very hard to write.

I only had one job, at Intuit, when I wrote my first web analytics book. I now have several full time jobs, plus this blog, plus speaking around the world, plus a family, plus… so much more.

It took weekends of writing and nights of editing and days of research combined with practicing the preaching by doing oodles of analysis and, more importantly, the support of the most understanding wife in the world.

At the end of it all it is rather gratifying to see one's book at a bookstore, helps grasp the magnitude of the process. And there's absolutely nothing quite like hearing your five year old yell in a busy Borders bookstore: "I FOUND DADDY'S BOOK!"

This blog post is in three parts: The pitch. Request for help. A lovely contest [Contest closed now, thanks for the entries!].

You don't have to read the whole thing & skip ahead, but that would hurt my feelings. :)

Here we go. . .

The Pitch:

I invite you to consider buying my second web analytics book. It is not only the most current book on everything important and bleeding edge in Web Analytics, it is a labor of love that will help you transform your personal thinking and assist in revolutionizing your organization (big or small).

It is not a technical book, though it will make you technically dangerous. It is not just a business book, though every dna strand in this book is more about online marketing than online analytics. It is not a hard book to read, though it is brain food.

Here's why I think you'll love it:

Chapter 1 The Bold New World of Web Analytics 2.0

No dragging of the feet, the book starts with a bang by laying out the framework that will be the center of every company that will leverage data (qualitative, quantitative, competitive) on the web. It ends with a challenge to embrace Multiplicity – without this it's goodbye greatness.

It will be hard for you to find a more compelling four step process to choose the right web analytics tool for your company. Soul searching, questions to torture vendors with, comparing vendors, running a pilot and negotiating a contract, it's all in there. You be off to the races right.

Chapter 3 The Awesome World of Clickstream Analysis: Metrics

The thing I enjoyed about this chapter (I know I wrote it, but still. . .) was that the first half works really hard to evolve your critical thinking skills. I love that because we take too much for granted, now you'll be skeptical. A good thing. The second half shows exactly how to pick the best metrics for your org and, my absolute favorite (Page 64), how to diagnose the root cause of a metrics performance.

Chapter 4 The Awesome World of Clickstream Analysis: Practical Solutions

When people think of web analytics everything they think about is chapter 4, and yet you'll find so many yummy treats here. The best WA report, segmentation, site search, SEO & PPC analysis, email, rich media, cookies, data sampling. . . . I am out of breath!

Chapter 5 The Key to Glory: Measuring Success

If I have one jihad it is to massively convert every person who touches the web to focus on measuring Outcomes! It is the one reason we can't achieve the greatness we so richly deserve. No more! Glory will be yours!! B2B. B2C. Small Biz. Large Biz. Non-Ecommerce. We make love to 'em all! One thing you'll read here that you'll read no where else? Computing Economic Value, a concept that will liberate you.

Chapter 6 Solving the “Why” Puzzle: Leveraging Qualitative Data

Oh, oh, oh qualitative analysis!! I am a Mechanical Engineer with a MBA, a late covert to the power of understanding the super sexy "why" by leveraging lab usability studies, surveys, card sorts, online remote testing and more. You get a jump start. The thing you'll adore: Pages 190 – 192.

Chapter 7 Failing Faster: Unleashing the Power of Testing and Experimentation

Sure you've heard of A/B and multivariate testing. But do you know how to truly win the game? There is no technical mumbo-jumbo here, just the real deal and how to get testing right. The thing you might not know / realize the power of: Controlled Experiments. I am convinced this is God's gift to online humanity, you'll agree with me by the time you reach Page 208.

Chapter 8 Competitive Intelligence Analysis

The most magnificent advantage the web possesses: everyone's data is available for everyone else to use. If Hilton Hotels has the data for Choice Hotels why not use it to "crush" them (sorry Sarah!). This chapter shows you how. I think the thing you'll be surprised by is at the start of the chapter (Data Sources, Types and Secrets).

Chapter 9 Emerging Analytics: Social, Mobile, and Video

The chapter I had the second most fun writing. Mobile, twitter, blogs, videos etc are just so darned hard to measure and so much changes every few hours that I had to really really work hard to find the essence of each and then make specific practical measurement recommendations that will stand the test of time. It was hard.

Chapter 10 Optimal Solutions for Hidden Web Analytics Traps

This is a collection of major reasons I think people fail at web analytics, and of course I boldly try to share how to avoid that fate. Behavior targeting, dashboards, accuracy, data mining, predictive analytics, and, the thing you'll appreciate the most IMHO, five steps for intelligent analytics evolution!

Chapter 11 Guiding Principles for Becoming an Analysis Ninja

All my life learnings laid bare. . . this is where you, yes you, start to evolve from a Reporting Squirrel to an Analysis Ninja! No metrics, data pukes, guidance on creating every more reports. No, none of that. Rather… analytical techniques, tips and tricks to apply to your job, how to evolve your thinking to a higher level.

Chapter 12 Advanced Principles for Becoming an Analysis Ninja

The chapter I had most fun writing (and rewrote the most number of times). It deals with two of the hardest practical challenges we face in the field of measurement: multi-touch campaign attribution analysis and multi channel analytics. Both are very hard to get right, both have a ton of fud out there, it was fun to share my recommendations.

Chapter 13 The Web Analytics Career

The chapter I should have had in the first book. How to plan a career in web analytics (paths, salary, longevity), and how to then cultivate the right set of skills. If you are a leader then how to spot great talent, how to interview them and make the right choice.

Some might argue, rightly so, that the most elusive thing to accomplish is to truly bring data democracy to your organization. This chapter bravely hopes to help you do exactly that: excite people about data, remove organizational barriers, use data to change behavior, dealing with data quality, and creating data driven HiPPO's.

Convinced?

Nothing, absolutely nothing, in life is easy. But if you have the will and access to knowledge then that just might help you choose an optimal path, a path where your hard work will yield above normal results. That's my hope, and promise, with Web Analytics 2.0.

Jennie and I have decided to donate 100% of our proceeds from this book, just like for the first one, to two charities. This book benefits The Smile Train and Ekal Vidyalaya. We are very excited about that.

Recommend the book.If you know someone who needs to turbocharge their online existence, please recommend Web Analytics 2.0 to them. Even in our hyper connected world, nothing works like a personal recommendation.

If you use a link please consider using: http://bit.ly/akwa20 That link has an affiliate code, all proceeds of which go to the above mentioned charities.

Review the book.
If you have a blog, website, twitter account, any kind of platform, it would be great if you could write a review of the book and help spread the word.

If you purchased the book online then please, pretty please, review the book on the store's website. Amazon. Borders. Target. Powells. Whatever you used.

I would like to express my deep appreciation to the readers of my blog, Occam’s Razor. In approximately three and a half years I have written 411,725 words in my 204 blog posts, and the readers of my blog have written 615,192 words in comments! Their engagement means the world to me and motivates me to make each blog post better than the last. It is impossible to thank each person, so on their behalf let me thank three: Ned Kumar, Rick Curtis, and Joe Teixeira.

A very solid case can be made for the fact that neither one of my books would exist without you and your engagement and encouragement.

I was SOOOOO thrilled to see my name appear in your acknowledgments page when I first saw your awesome, shiny new book sitting on my desk (after a hell of a travel day after the GAAC summit at Google).

I've been telling my friends – who know nothing about analytics or search engine optimization or really even the internet – about you and about our lovely industry. They now think I'm important because the most popular and brilliant analyst of our time wrote my name in his book! :)

I am no doubt going to review your book on Amazon. I am a very slow reader because as well as being a GAAC I also go to school full time. I'm on chapter 6 right now and I have already been able to apply insights from your first 5 chapters in my organization. I'm also going to make sure I send you a picture because I don't see many South Floridians in your Flickr photostream, so we'll have to change that.

So thanks once again for another phenomenal masterpiece.

P.S. Web Analytics 2.0 also contains a CD with some presentations and videos, and also a $25 Google AdWords gift card…so if you haven't yet acquired this book, I don't know what you're waiting for :)

To answer your question about measuring the success of a company’s social media efforts and how to do it, I must give the simplest of all answers (as a business grad)… and no I haven't read your books yet (although looking forward to).

Show the impact on the Bottom Line or in other words calculate an ROI and prove that you are increasing the bottom line.

Although I know there are things that we do that everyone says "that is a branding thing and won't impact the bottom line" I would agree with you and say that is an excuse and a lousy one at that.

So again correlate your efforts to the Bottom Line for the organization. Not just the "Goal" level of the organization as that doesn't prove the value of it. The goals are only steps to improve the bottom line and you should be able to show your impact all the way down the funnel.

Hi Avinash,
This is an amazing prize! Your book alone would be awesome, but 6 others too?!?!

Anyway, I think there are many ways to measure success of social media efforts, and it probably depends on the company and their personal strategy.

For instance, a small business that puts in 1-2 hours per day on social media would have a different measure of success than a huge company that has a social media team that spends 100 hours per week collectively.

However, I think that one global aspect of success in social media is to get others to connect independently of the company's efforts.

It's one thing for people to respond and engage with content that the company themselves produces. But I think a true success (not the only success but one measure of it) is having a community where the people are creating and engaging with each other without any prompting the the company itself. Whether or not, these community members are discussing the company and/or its products, I would consider it a success that we were able to bring people like-minded people together.

I have another 70 pages to go in your book. Rest assured I will review it…likely in multiple places…to spread the good word out. Like Joe, I was also thrilled to see my name in the acknowledgement section. I've never been 'acknowledged' before! :) You've definately raised the bar with this book. You've delivered what was needed.

Congratulations on another career achievement.

Rick

PS: I'll send a picture in. I have a couple of ideas…just haven't had the time for the photo shoot.

If I were to measure the success of a company’s social media efforts how would I do it? … In general it would have to be an analysis of the depth and breadth of the response from my target group. In other words; it isn't enough to have a large number friends and followers – they have to be engaged to the point of some type of action. (Deeper involvement = deeper commitment).

After that, it's a just matter of asking if the response met your specific objectives. Too often, people and business engage in social media efforts without knowing what they want to accomplish. (If you set up a Facebook or Twitter account simply because someone said that you should – then you have probably already met your goal. Technically successful, but highly ineffective.)

I got your book from Amazon the other week. I absolutely love it! I've been sharing it with one of my non-techie friends to give him a jump into using analytics principals, and he is also enjoying it. I think it shows how accessible your style is that a non technical individual (someone who has no experience whatsoever with websites or programming) can really enjoy and get a lot out of Web Analytics 2.0.

I'm enjoying applying what I've learned to both my personal projects and work!

Your social media efforts are successful if you have formed a community that can replace much of your company.

– If your company missteps, your community offers positive PR and apologies on your behalf.
– If you don't have a resource (e.g. enough customer service reps), your community fills the gap (e.g. community members help each other on public forums)
– Whether you are doing marketing or not, your community members continually evangelize your company

… and so on.

These are not things you can measure at some instant with a calculator, but they are things you can observe and strive for as your company progresses through its life-cycle.

I will never forget when I emailed you a question I had over a year ago, and you actually answered! I have been following your work ever since. Congratulations on your new book. One more thing I have to save up for! Thanks Avinash. And one more thing. There was just something different about this request to help spread the word. It didn't seem like a shameless plug, but more of a 'help me help others' You Rock!

I am an analytics novice but my goal is to become an analytics ninja! My copy of Web Analytics 1 Hour a Day is supposed to arrive at my doorstep either today or tomorrow so I can't wait to study your wonderful books in tandem.

Ever since I was a kid playing on my dad's MS-DOS computer, I've been fascinated and intrigued by the power of computers and technology to change the world we live in. When I started with social media in 2005 as a high school student, I was immediately impressed by the potential social networking had to change interpersonal communication and social dynamics. Since that time, I've been constantly working to merge this passion with my other great love- politics.

In my junior year at college, I wrote a paper about the use of new media in presidential elections since 1996 with a focus on the 2008 race- this paper won a Gold Pollie award at the American Association of Political Consultants for best use of social media research. Ultimately the biggest award to come from that paper was the job I have now- working with new media consulting at a brand-new company in Northern Virginia- RaiseDigital. My current boss found me through that paper, and used LinkedIn to get in touch with me. I was very fortunate to get a job right out of college- I literally finished my last few classes this summer. That's why I feel like I owe a big debt of gratitude for my job, as well as innumerable other opportunities, to social media.

While I feel I have a pretty strong understanding of social networking and its background and functionality, I truly feel I have a lot to learn still. I believe these books will help round out my understanding of the best uses of social media and help me be most effective for my company's clients. Moreover, it will help me shape my understanding of how to merge my understanding of the political world with the benefits a successful online strategy can bring to our clients. Ultimately, the more candidates and organizations leverage this critical medium, the more competition and growth there will be, and the better experience we will all have online.

"If you were to measure the success of a company’s social media efforts how would you do it?"

Success could be viewed against the companies goals of said campaign. Analytically speaking, any social media campaign by a company is to either replace or supplement their "standard" marketing efforts and/or to build a self sustaining, viral, community of supporters.

But if I am measuring the success of the campaign then I would have to ask myself if I would be satisfied with the end result. It is a perspective thing.

In 2010, my biggest commitment is to evolve our corporate and marketing communications beyond traditional PR methods that includes a seamless social media platform that creates a two-way dialogue with the public. My dream is a fully operatioanl social media micro-site where we can engage the public and vice versa via multiple channels, from IR to marketing to environmental to CSR. And to be clear, while it would invovle various updates on what our company is up to, it would also include relevant and related topics that would serve as resources (e.g. environment) but not company-centric (for instance, 10 easy tips on how to be environmental or links to other sites that focus on environmental causes). To get there, the first step in this 1000 mile journy begins with being well versed and prepared in order to create and deliver a presentation to our leadership that is: 1) influential, credible; and 2) grounded in strategy and sound ROI.

Toward that end, I firmly believe success begins with having a corporte objective that drives a strong strategic approach vs. a tactical mode centered on one offs that involves slamming up Facebook or Twitter applications and thinking you have a winning social media program. In the end, this is all still very new to me, but I know enuogh to know there are many things I know, I know I don't know in the way of sound social media. From where I sit, these books would certainly provide a wealth of insights to a newbie, such as myself, on how to correctly approach the dream so that the right strategy is in place.

Hi Avinash, thanks again for your time and effort to spread-share all this knowledge…

"If you were to measure the success of a company’s social media efforts how would you do it?"

The art of measurement, regards in the ability to compare things, and in fact connect the dots.

1.Niche Influence (Quality of Message): Each brand is talking to people in many, many ways. Internet enables the real time feedback. Its all about hearing the quality of the reaction to all that energy (mashup media tv Vs youtube, Radio Vs web content). You need to make sure you got an influenced user re-action matrix ¿what you value most, a user registration (follow), or a user comcaster comment?

2. Clic Value: Give it a certain value to every interaction you capture, remember the users are in real control, that changes all, measuring how deep is your online conversation ("transaction").

3. Findability: embracing the organic traffic to your message, SEO niche power Vs SEM, its all about the long term sustainability

Internet give us the clues to solve each case, its all about the viewer optics.

Avinash, I just purchased your book today… I am way excited to start reading it. I am working on the new Inbound Marketing Book by the hubspot guys. I am so enjoying that. I attended a Hubspot IMU webinar you did and if your book is anything like you did your webinar… I will not put the book down and let me tell you… I am not a book reader.

Thanks for your hard work and I look forward to listening and reading what you have to say and putting it to action.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a comprehensive book, and for giving the proceeds to worthy charities. Our website carries affiliate links to recommended books with 100% of proceeds also going to charity, but I kept your original link so all the money from your book goes to the ones of your choice.

I appreciate all of the work you put into writing your book & I am looking forward to reading it.

I am responding to "Beth's Blog" and posting my plans for using Web2.0 and soial media in 2010. I plan to help those with developmental and physical disabilities form meaningful connections with their families, as well as their larger communities, through work with non-profit service agencies.

In my experience, individuals with disabilities can benefit from a social media presence by increasing their opportunity to be seen and heard in a social setting, and thereby decreasing their sense of isolation and "differentness". It is a simple idea that is already expanding social horizons for many individuals with disabilities.

I hope that people reading this will encourage and assist those they know with disabilities to take a first step, maybe open a facebook page, and work to create community that is inclusive of the disabled and thier families through their own use of social media platforms.

The book "Connected " (Christakis and Fowler, 2009) has an excellent discussion on the relationship between social relationships and their impact on health within the larger community. I think you would find it very interesting.

Again, look forward to reading your book and becoming more informed. I also plan to use the following site to broadcast my message:

Though i am not related to this feild, i had stumbled into your blog one day and have been following it since then and have become more interested in Web Analytics. Working for an Web-based company has made me relate to your blogs to our company's success or failure points at one point or the other… Thanks again for inducing this interest in me.

I am trying to think about a possible solution for the competition question you have asked above. Waiting to go and check for your book at LandMark tomorrow, if the book is available in India.

This contest is so much fun! I would take a more simple route (no tools) to measure the ROI of social media.

So here is what I would do to measure the ROI of social media. I think social media in effect creates more awareness which indirectly increases you sales. What's challenging is that people might not directly come from a Facebook page/ Youtube video but they might hear from you from those channels, and visit later, hence it does not reflect in your analytics reports.

So my answer is simple: I would use the power of a simple survey to find out how people find out about the brand/ come to buy both online and offline. Now people who answer survey are not the total number of visitors on my site, so I would extrapolate that answer to extend for all the visitors, which would give me a reasonable estimate as to ow much traffic does social media generate.Then I would segment to find how the traffic engagement is with respect to those social media outlets vs the rest of the site, and the direct impact if my goals (which may not be conversion rates, but a certain page view engagement on site etc). So here I compare how visitors from social media perform with the rest of the site that do not come from social media.

The way I think of it is its the way you define ROI and set your goals. Here I have defined it as creating awareness and subsequently site engagement in different forms which is important to me. For different sites its different.

I have just finished reading web analytics 2.0 and i would now consider myself as a 'semi-pro-analytics-ninja' (just need to apply what i have learnt into the real world for a little while longer).

The book itself is clean, easy to understand and is probably the only 'fun and practical' web analytics learning books out there. Avinash's style of writing is unique…every page is like a landing page to me and if i did not understand a page i would have considered it as a bounce (i came, i puked, i left) and you (Avinash) will be glad to hear there were no bounces. Well done on writing such a great book.

Avinash gives great examples of how you can put data into context and questions which you would need to ask yourself and your business before you dive into the exciting world of web analytics.

Unfortunately,(IMHO) many businesses in the U.K do not appreciate the power of web analytics and the success it can bring, i just hope i am one of many 'training analytics ninjas' out there ready to make an impact in the U.K. I know i am.

If I were to measure the success of my company’s social media efforts how would I do it?

I am educating my organization (& a few other organizations) about social media now. That process is slow. Each organization is understaffed and funds are tight. No one has the title of Marketing or Media or Communications anything. Very few are technically adept.

For many, social media is that "new thing" everyone talks about. The same is true for a great many of the organizations' clients, so educating the organization is also about helping them understand that clients will use social media without needing to know all that we have to learn about it. Clients just want a way to communicate with us and each other in a way that helps them get what they need and/or want. And that only speaks to one potential group of "engagers."

To measure these companies' social media success, I would start with:
– how many engage with them (distinguishing between new and repeat users)
– frequency of engagement (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.)
– type of engagement (i.e., checking calendar versus "conversation" with them)
– engagement between users on the sites (cross-talk among users)
– nature of the engagements (complaints, compliments, requests for info, info exchange, etc.)

It's difficult to say more without having a goal in mind for our social media efforts. I'd want to poll visitors to get more information about why they come and what they hope(d) to get from us. I haven't read all these great books yet, so don't know what tools I'd use to get these measurements. Winning these books would not just help me, but the result would be that I'd be better able to help several organizations move forward.

I am answering based on my observations – looking forward to reading your book though.

Sentiment analysis on Digg, Twitter, and across personal/corporate blogs would be a reasonable method to measure the success of your social media campaign. Another way would be to measure the frequency/observe the trend in frequency (in a time window) of tweets referring/tagging the entity under consideration; would be more apt to do it when there has been a press release/product launch to measure the reach of your campaign. Combined with sentiment analysis, and when compared with other entities, it would be a reasonably accurate indicator – both quantitative and qualitative.

I think that the number of adepts or followers on Facebook or Twitter are good things to look at to measure the success of a company's social media, but at the end, I think that social medias should participate to the main goals of the company and this is what we should look at. At the end, I believe that even if there is not an easy and efficient way to measure the success of a company's social media efforts, a company has to be there to exist for the new generation.

I can't resist participating in the contest and perhaps all I'll be winning here is brownie points (but hey, the journey of learning is the ultimate reward).

Based on my current study of Web Analytics 2.0, I would focus on one of these three outcomes to measure the success of a company's social media (SM) effectiveness. If all three are achieved that's even better in earning more love and hopefully more budget from senior management:

(1) The revenues generated by this SM initiative
(2) The cost savings achieved by the SM initiative
(3) The resulting increase in customer loyalty or customer engagement from the SM initiative

Many thanks for making a complex subject much simpler and more enjoyable to learn for all of us!

Measure of a company's social media success: number of constructive interactions–closely or loosely affiliated users virally though perhaps unintentionally influencing one another towards behavior that is mutually valuable, be it to read something, click-on something, purchase something, support something, donate, etc.

To measure the efforts of a company's social efforts I would use 2 criteria:

1) How many people know the brand (obviously)
2) But also how many people have heard of the brand but know absolutely nothing what it is about. E.g alot of people "heard about Twitter" but knew absolutely nothing about it. When people keep hearing about something without knowing anything their curiosity is piqued. Hence why #2 is a big thing in my mind.

My measure of success would be somewhat counterintuitve to most "companies" who are working on branding and the like. I work for a science-based nonprofit that is trying to inform the public debate on issues like global warming, genetically engineered foods, etc (while yes, also getting new donors and activists). Followers and recognition of the brand are all key points, yes, but I really consider our efforts a success when data/facts that we have researched, published, and disseminated reach the point of general knowledge that they get shared *without* attribution.

Congratulations! I'm excited to finally have the book in hand. You are one of those very few authors whose books I will continue to buy without reservation or review, not just because you're one of the nicest guys in the blogosphere, but because your 1st book is worth its weight in gold.

Measure your're social media success the same way you would measure your're relations with friends. Lets say I collected all fans, bloggers, followers and others interacting with a particular brand and illustrated that as a big social media web of a particular brand. If the web grew bigger how would that indicate any success for the brand? More customers, a stronger connection between the brand and the consumers… maybe, maybe not. As well as a friendship isn't about the amounth of friends on Facebook but the number and frequency of interpersonal interaction around social objects that creates a tangible or intagible meaning for you.

But more importantly, how would measuring the number of Facebook friends help me find insights that could lead to action to improve the success? To find that I would like to find out what's making the social networks surrounding a particular brand (brand community) work well? First off. What's the number of action that people do related to the brand? Also measure the frequency and recency of thoose actions.

Exempels of actions that would be interesting for H&M to measure:

– Signing up the brands newsletter
– Giving a blogpost about the brand thumps up
– Sending a link to someone with a photo of a new piece of apparel
– Buying something in the webshop
etc.

But you can't only measure actions – you also need to measure social objects. If you only measured actions the girl working in you local corner shop would be your best friend. What's the social glue that makes people connect to eachother through a brand? What I've found with both friend and brands is that the more social objects you share the more important the relationship.

Exempels of social object that would be interesting for H&M to measure:
– Guest designers
– Low price clothes
– The H&M financials
– A new dress with flowers on it
etc.

Social object could also be explained as themes/associations and needs actions surrounding them to be alive and benifitial for the brand.

Congratulations, Avinash! I was lucky enough to get a copy at your "book hugging" at the DC eMetrics conference.

For social media, the obvious metrics still hold: referrals and conversions from referrals.

But being from a nonprofit background, where the higher-ups are often skeptical of social media, the real metrics are the words. There's nothing more valuable than the tweet that says "I love that {your org} is on Twitter" or the time you respond to a comment on Facebook addressing a wide concern about your organization or when you comment on a blog and the author is blown-away impressed that he got your attention. Those are the things that really get the higher-ups' attention. And that's the social media that I want to measure, because that's what makes a difference to the organization.

Avinash,
I'm making it through the book in my free time (what's that?). I've always appreciated your first book and blog posts for your ability to succinctly put incredibly dense material into such practical terms. Your second book is no different. Thanks for putting so much time into sharing your insights and experience with your readers.

As a simple project manager trying to spread the word about web analytics and customer centricity within a large company, in 2010 I'll be measuring our social media success by the number of HiPPOs' minds I can change with the voice of the customer.

“If you were to measure the success of a company’s social media efforts how would you do it?”

A cocktail of things:

– technically supported analysis that proves search/optimized relevance (SEM&SEO)
– a look at SOV/Sentiment within the space (can be aligned to SOM)
– tools/goals in place that meet or measure against ROI (eg. how much is a FB fan worth)
– actively engaged communities built or leveraged that provide valuable insights (no $$ figure can attach itself to the value of this yet)
– the relevance and influence of these communities and how they worked (or will work for your brand in future)

It comes down to an all encompassing engagement performance that allows the company the opportunity to participate in 2 way conversations by both listening and responding with relative real time solutions/suggestions that put the company in a better place to determine the exact needs of their consumers. Measuring success in this space is being lead by the importance of being found and heard and to ensure absolute relevance for all time company/brand stickiness.

First thing, if my customers are talking about me instead of me talking about myself, then that is a great success in social media.

To get more technical about this, I would monitor analytics tools like Google Analytics and Radian6. Section off a social media profile by monitoring social networks, twitter, popular blogs, referring sites. Then compare/contrast spikes in GA with mentions that are captured in Radian6. Chase down these mentions and thank them, follow, monitor, engage etc.

ROI always comes to mind with measuring success, and social media is only a part of my marketing efforts. I would mainly watch for increases in SEO rankings due to social media influence, watch for customer engagement, visitor actions/goals on websites, and sales lift.

Will social media directly cause sales? For some cases it will, for my company it currently does not. Social media is an indirect cause of sales for my company. Thus that is how I would measure social media for myself.

I am really enjoying the new book – it will be a useful reference for many years. To answer your question, I measure social media success along certain dimensions:

Reach: total numbers of subscribers/subscriber growth over time/size of 2nd and 3rd level networks. Another interesting thing to consider is growth potential across audience segment. For example, your Twitter account is probably followed by close to 100% of web analytics professionals, and you probably have a lot more room to grow your subscriber base among social media professionals.

SM Engagement: measure the frequency of your incoming social interactions across your social networks. Always interesting to look at this compared with content creation frequency.

"Ask" Power: where the rubber hits the road. This is a measurement of your power to influence behavior outside of the SM platform(s) where you request it. For example, buying a product, commenting on a blog based on a tweet, or driving attendance to a webinar – anything where you use your social capital to ask someone to do something.

The best measurement for the success of a Social media campaign in my opinion is to find a way for Counting all the contacts, new Information and conversations and deals that are initiated. Just like soft skills are Not measurable in exact numbers so isnt Social media imho (yet).

To measure a company's social media efforts, I would first examine the goals I has set out to accomplish and the time period for which I wanted to accomplish my goals. These two principles would guide my measurement.

I would continue to set goals, test, learn, reach my goals and then set higher goals. You can never stop reaching.

I've been a regular reader, havent really commented before though. But here it is, to say congrats on the book. I'm looking forward to reading it.

To answer your question…

One interesting way would be to measure the cost of making a sale over time (could be the total marketing expense divided by # of transactions. Or alternatively, advertising expense divided by # of transactions). Of course, one can also use metrics like revenues, visitor value and customer lifetime value instead of transactions – the essential idea is to focus on outcomes.

The reasoning is this. If your customers are engaged by your social media efforts, they dont need to be persuaded by your ads/promotions/discounts. They buy your stuff because they love you(or in a B2B context, trust you).

Of course, this measures the impact/consequence of social media engagement rather than the engagement itself, but isnt the impact what we are all interested in?

I am just a beginner in the field but still I will try to answer the question and
may be, I will get lucky. :-)

I would take a concrete case of Twitter rather than an abstract case of
referring to social media.

Trying to answer in points and hence keep the answer brief and crisp:
(1). Measure Responsiveness and Engagement: the ratio of the number of
@-replies(responses to users) to the number of normal marketing
tweets (without @ ) from the company's twitter account will tell us the extent
of responsiveness and two sided engagement.
(2). Measure participation: A week-wise time series graph of the number of
complaints/feedbacks/contacts registered for a quarter each, before and after
the company started its twitter account.
This will tell us is there a rise in the number of people coming forward
with problems since the bar is lowered now. A constant or drop here can either mean
that the efforts have not been enough or the company might not be improving.
(3). Measure sentiment: A week-wise time series of sentiment (positive/negative/neutral)
analysis of the tweets from users with "@company-name" reference will tell us how
satisfied the users have been, from the interaction, over time. Again data from a
quarter each, before and after starting the twitter account will give us a good picture.
(4) Measure patron-ism: A time series of the number of re-tweets by users, of company tweets,
with a custom remark. Re-tweet is easy, a custom remark on it makes is valuable.
e.g. "RT @company-name —–" is less valuable when compared to
"RT @company-name —–"+"<< kudos guys!!"

*Presumption: the company has existed at least a quarter each, before and after
creating the twitter account, else the data and hence the tests above may not
be sufficient/applicable.

*Note: Twitter is real-time but I couldn't think of real-time measurements for
determining the success of a company's social media efforts, may be I need
web analytics 2.0. :-)

Most companies are dabbling in just about every social media space, yet not all efforts carry equal importance towards a company’s overall web strategy. Step one for me would be to focus on the social media spaces which create behaviors that directly improve the performance of the main web site.

As a caveat, I speak from my limited experience of working with a non profit content site and even more limited experience of working with social media so this is just an idea I’ve been kicking around.

For my company page impressions are king because more page impressions mean more underwriting and grant revenue. Ultimately we want to drive people to look at our website and keep coming back for more because if they consume more of our content and loyal to our site, we know we are serving our audience well.
To that end, I would value metrics that show interaction with our content (linking, retweets and comments) higher than other metrics available (Fans, followers and subscribers). Fans and followers are passive; the act of linking and spreading the word is active and gives a sense that our content is resonating with our audience. Since we have several fan pages, twitter accounts and blogs for different content categories, I would create rank reports for each social media platform based on the content categories performance in the key “active” metric associated with the platform (linking for facebook, retweets for twitter and comments for blogs). A content category may rank well in its comments, but poorly in its linking. If a content category ranks well in all metric categories than we can infer that it is serving our audience well. If we’ve put a lot of effort into one content category and it ranks low compared to our other content, then we should re-evaluate our efforts because we are either need to change something or realize that our audience may not put as high a value on it as we do and it is no longer worth our limited resources to produce it.

Metric 1: measure by "word of type". How much attention and buzz is around your business name (as a keyword) and how much content was created within each network/discussions. Basically, how much user generated content did you create?

Metric 2: Reputation. How has direct communication with individuals in your market changed your company reputation and image?

Really looking forward to reading this, and getting your always creative and inspired perspective on analytics in one portable place. The chapter titles alone were already a treat to read! Looking forward to seeing the fun you had with writing Chapter 12!

On measurement of social media efforts ….it is difficult to answer that here without knowing the context — as someone I know once said, "Context is King Baby!" :-).
So without the specifics, here is the framework I would use:
– What was the goal behind the effort (acquisition, penetration, damage control, etc.)
– What was the medium(s) used(Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace etc.)
– What was the format (video, blog, podcast, etc.)
The metrics for success (related to conversion, engagement, advocacy, etc.) would revolve around the answers to the above questions.

On Web Analytics 2.0 – it is a wonderful book with tons of information and insights, for folks at any level. Avinash has the knack for taking apart complex concepts and explaining it in an easy to understand manner for anyone. I have posted my review at Amazon.com – http://bit.ly/8yUKEA. Definitely a recommended reading for everyone.

Most companies are excited about using twitter, but do not understand the value it provides.

There are two types of measurable ways in which Twitter can be used:

Broadcasting –

This is where a company uses a Twitter account to Tweet for the brand. If they’re doing it correctly, they are either acting as customer care (see a great example with @omniturecare), or providing other valuable information to their clients.

Measuring the value and success of your company’s Twitter account can be done by tracking:

The key here is that if you are gaining 1,000 new followers a day, but also lose 800, then you are not acquiring loyal listeners. This type of insight is very actionable, since you can double your daily new followers by finding ways to save a ¼ of your daily loss of followers.

2. Follower Ranking

a. Identify followers as ‘Expert’ or ‘Small Time’ – Twitter API allows you to see the source of the Tweets. Someone that Tweets from TweetDeck is much more engaged in Tweeting than someone who Tweets from Web, or syncs from FB

b. Track the number of folks they are following – this reflects the velocity of their feed. In other words, if one of your followers also follows 20 other people (and Tweets from Web), it suggests that their feed gets filled up rapidly and moves too quickly for them to read. They are most likely not catching your tweets at all.

c. Track the lapse since their last tweet – this reflects if they are really using Twitter and listening to you. I remember seeing some statistic of how 60% of new Twitter users did not come back after their first Tweet (I may be quoting this wrong). Nevertheless, the idea is that maybe you’re talking but no one is there to listen.

Measuring Brand Mentions –

This is where you will capture every brand related keyword mention on Twitter. You will look at:

1. Daily volume of brand keyword mentions

2. Track each author’s follower count – to calculate the reach of the mentions

3. Capture the accent of the tweet – positive or negative mention

4. Track competitor’s brand keywords – to compare to yours and to take advantage of the volume that could come from their campaigns

5. ***Most important for generating actionable insight***

Overlay the trends of brand mentions on top of your site analytics, such as:

I just got my copy of web analytics 2 last week. So now I have both books. Thank you. I've been busy following you around the net. Watched your webinar on the longtail at marketinprofs and am watching the one from google, think 2010. I am grateful that I can get a first rate education on analytics and web optimzation without spending a bundle. Thank you for sharing all of your hard work. Get well.

Just finished reading the book, few days later than planned, but had to stop at times to do actual work (you know the consulting stuff we do to pay the bills :)).

Congratulations again on an excellent book, covering strategies, techniques, "traditional" and cutting-edge analytics tips. I encourage all your blog readers to buy the book, read it and then implement what they can in their organizations.

1. Your insights and your communication of those insights are, as always, top notch!
2. Looking forward to read your new book, and the fact that 100% of the proceeds go to charity is very admirable.

I'm writing an internal blog on web analytics and optimization in the company I work at (more than 100K employees) and I just wanted you to know that my last post was about your book and hopefully will encourage people to buy it using the "charity link".

I humbly believe Claire had the best on point answer and she also added more detail when I asked her to comment on how she would measure twtter, as an example. Here's Claire's additional thoughts:

For your Twitter account, I’d want to look at:

· Number of your tweets that get retweeted and by how much

· Number of followers (one time and repeat)

· Content of retweets (any that get commented on, etc. seem to have some value to others more than just retweeting?).

· I’ve seen some stats on tweets that indicate the major percentage of them come from a small minority of tweeters; and that study also examined and categorized the content. I’d want to look at it from something like that level of detail so get an idea of who, how, when, how often, etc.

This is a bit subjective, and I’m sure I’d learn more from some of the books in the library!

It was very hard to pick just one winner since there were so many good entries. For your kind efforts I wanted to award some more surprise prizes.

There were some entries that struck me as remarkable for one reason or another, each person below will get a copy of my new book Web Analytics 2.0:

Avinash, where did you find the time to get this one out? ;o) Even though I have been waiting for this for a while now thanks and look forward to getting it soon. How do I get an autographed version? :o)

Been your follower for a long time and really appreciate your work, knowledge and dedication to this field. What I like (we love?) about you is the extensive, thoughtful, creative, to-the-point writing, free of political and business garbage brought out in an unbiased manner. Keep up this good work.

Have ordered the book and waiting for it. Just out of cusriosity … why are there no digital versions of the same? The 14 day waiting on Amazon intl expedited shipments seems sooo looooong :)

Hello- I'm loving this book. There are a few minor flaws with the DVD… videos launch without navigational control? Would have been helpful during my 6 hr drive to Montreal — well, my wife will drive while I watch the videos! This isn't fatal, I'm just passing the word along. I do like to pause once in a while. Download? Kisses.

Have to agree there Avinash, the only dissapointment, altho I had actually seen most of it elsewhere anyway but yes, it would have been nice to know how long the videos were and add them to a list or something. I was sitting down getting comfy only to have to get up 5 mins later to play around again.

Having said that I do see them as a potential bonus to some people so musnt grumble and doesn't take away from all the hard work that went into the book itself. I'm into my second reading and already finding great nuggets of information to impliment where beneficial. Well done for excellent work.

Johny: Web Analytics 2.0 is focused on teaching you how to think about analytics, and analytical concepts. It is not focused on teaching how to use a particular tool. In as much, you'll still find the book to be of value.

You can also use this blog as a companion, which should make a great combo with the book.

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We’re on the razor’s edge today – Occam’s Razor, that is. With Avinash Kaushik’s new book Web Analytics 2.0 finally hitting the bookstores, he’s promoting – well, at least as much as he has time for with his multiple full-time jobs and numerous other responsibilities and passions. Avinash is not popular just because of what he has to say – his energy and sense of humor makes what could be a dry, dry topic into something anyone can get into and understand.
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[…] Avinash's new book, Web Analytics 2.0? He's written a short overview of the book in this blog post. You can also buy the book through this affiliate link with Amazon and Avinash will donate 100% of […]

If you even have mild interest in website analytics then you likely know his name. Last week, Avinash announced the release of second book Web Analytics 2.0. We are eager to complete it on our own! At first glance it looks like a very high level read. You can follow Avinash on Twitter here. He is very helpful in the industry so don’t be shy.
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[…] I am following Avinash Kaushik on his blog to keep up with his great articles and work. I read his book "Web Analytics an hour a day" and he came out recently with a new book. Web Analytics 2.0. […]

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Avinash has just published Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity, also at http://tr.im/akweb. It looks to be a fantastic read by one of the foremost web analytics practitioners and teachers, who is seeing an undeniable evolution of web technologies and online trends, including social media, video, and mobile.
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[…] entry analysis, mismatched calls to action and first impressions. Also, don't forget about Avinash's great new web analytics 2.0 book that just came out, an essential read to help understand your website and its […]

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Avinash himself lays out the “chapter and verse” of the book on his blog this week. As he says, “It is not a technical book, though it will make you technically dangerous. It is not just a business book, though every dna strand in this book is more about online marketing than online analytics. It is not a hard book to read, though it is brain food.” You know it’s going to become a classic, but you may not know that all proceeds will benefit two very worthwhile charities, and there’s a contest too (check it out).
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[…]
It’s more than how many followers you have on Twitter or how many likes you have on Facebook. This follow friday we look at the importance of measurement for all campaigns and business optimization strategies from analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik. Author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour A Day, Kaushik is the Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google. A thought-leader and expert in gaining actionable insights from analytics efforts, @avinash evolves approaches to online marketing and communications.
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[…]
The Google Analytics test was mostly straight-forward, but there was a focus on only one or two aspects of Analytics. Which seems kind of ridiculous when you consider that Avinash Kaushik’s book on Web Analytics is 500 pages long and weighs a kilo.
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